Digi International (Minnetonka, Minn., U.S.A.), a network communication company, on Tuesday introduced the iDigi Gateway Development Kit with 3G cellular connectivity. The kit allows remote devices to be connected wirelessly over cellular networks and integrated into a cloud environment, according to the company. The development kit contains the hardware, software and documentation necessary for ZigBee-to-3G cellular Internet connectivity.

According to Digi, the Development Kits support Sprint, Verizon, AT&T Wireless, Vodafone and other global 3G GSM networks, and cost $499.

“Many view machine-to-machine (M2M) wireless connectivity to the cloud as something that can only be done with great investment in time, resource and money,” says Larry Kraft, senior vice president of global sales and marketing at Digi International.

According to Digi, this is no longer the case because its development kit provides remote M2M wireless connectivity in less than an hour.

Sprint is one of the service providers having its field engineers use the iDigi Gateway Development Kit. According to Wayne Ware, vice president of Emerging Solutions at Sprint, the kit allows the service provider to conduct concept trials to demonstrate the power of M2M.

The iDigi Gateway Development Kit is designed to make it easy to setup a ZigBee network, upload a custom iDigi Device Integration Application (iDigi Dia) and provide connectivity to the Cloud for Web services integration to standard business applications over the Internet, says the company. Using the kit, a user will be able to log into a Google App demo and remotely switch on/off a lamp and monitor its history using wireless Digi technologies.

The iDigi Gateway Development Kit includes a ZigBee-to-3G cellular gateway, Smart Plug, battery-powered XBee temperature/light sensors, Integrated Development Environment (IDE), and related cables, battery and power supply, according to the company.